CIC has attended MWC since 2014 and has seen it grow to wield influence in the direction of software development, delivery and lifecycle management across the broad software solution and communication landscape. In this podcast discussion, CIC’s Research Director, Bola Rotibi and Principal Analysts Cathy Mulligan and Clive Howard wrap up on CIC’s attendance at Mobile World Congress 2019 and offer Insights into the potential future for both the conference and the wider industry. Of particular note, are thoughts on the key challenges concerning the underpinning technologies, connectivity and the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain and process strategies such as DevOps.
Fast forward 3 to 5 years – find out what type of conference the CIC team think MWC will become.
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CIC’s Principal Analyst Dr Cathy Mulligan and Bola Rotibi, Research Director discuss with Gail Wong, Product Manager, AT&T Internet of Things, the very real way that a Telecom operator such as AT&T can make good business from IoT with strong valued based partner interactions.
In this podcast we hear about the foundations for a partnership model and strategy that can deliver meaningful engagement, opening the way for viable commercial returns for each participant in the partner chain. Of note are the capabilities on offer from existing connectivity investments in addition to the practical implementation requirements for edge communications. Spoiler Alert: the potential for sustaining the viability of Blockchain for key supply chains and networks is envisioned.
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CIC’s Research Director, Bola Rotibi and Principal Analyst, Clive Howard, speak to Joan A Barcia Espin, Director of Product Management and Justin Paul, Marketing Director at Zeetta Networks to find out how MWC19 is reflecting new thinking and changed approaches in the telecommunication industry.
A small and nimble player, Zeetta Networks are betting on the breakthrough in networking technology for telecoms that allows for orchestration and network slicing for targeted services. In this podcast, listeners can hear what Zeetta believes are the real drivers for 5G, the next big connectivity themes and how market disruption is resulting in a shift in the relationships the large Telecom operators are more open to building. Exciting times indeed, but who stands to gain the most? Undoubtedly, the changing market dynamics underscored by technologies such as Blockchain offers interesting potential and greater collaboration between the app development and network operations community. Listen to how both CIC and Zeeta see this playing out.
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CIC’s Principal Analyst Dr Cathy Mulligan and Bola Rotibi, Research Director catch up with Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of the Hyperledger Project at the Linux Foundation and Marta Piekarska, Director of Ecosystem at Hyperledger to discuss the important significance of MWC19 to the Hyperledger Project. Together with the Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF) and the Linux Foundation Networking teams, their presence highlights the convergence that many see shaping and evolving the relationships to be had in the information, communication and technology sector going forward.
In this podcast we hear about the latest projects driving the Hyperledger team forward and their impact to sustaining the viability of Blockchain for key supply chains.
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This is an accompanying report to the CIC Software Delivery InFocus Podcast Series on Transforming to digital: Precision tactics from the IBM Cloud Garages. To understand and identify how the value add that an innovation centre, like the IBM Cloud Garage, can present to companies looking to adapt and digitally transform, CIC’s Research Director, Bola Rotibi spoke with Steve Robinson IBM’s General Manager for Cloud Labs, IBM Hybrid Cloud and Rachel Reinitz, IBM Fellow and CTO of IBM Cloud Garage. In this report we outline and summarise important insights from the discussion and offer a glimpse into the transformation goals that are top of mind for organisations operating in the digital economy. Much is at stake for any organisation looking to innovate and grow digitally, therefore recognising the important purpose and value an innovation centres can offer will be vital. Finally, this report highlights the tenets and practices for a successful IBM Cloud Garage and how organisations can maximise and optimise their engagement at a cloud Garage session.

It is widely acknowledged that the cloud market in 2018 is growing. Many indices point to this, but one in particular is from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, which held its annual European conference in Copenhagen in May. As is the practice, the Kubernetes Conference (KubeCon) was run alongside. It attracted more than 4,100 people from around Europe and marks a key watershed moment for cloud native applications that enterprise IT should take note of.
In this article, we outline how three years on and acceleration in adoption is showing from all corners and what the coming of age for Cloud-native means for the market.

Mastering data and drawing insights and context is now recognised as a cornerstone capability for operating in the digital economy. Artificial Intelligence (AI), the umbrella term for a cohort of underpinning technologies such as Machine Learning (ML) serves as the means to extract and determine the insights that the data is pointing to and the mechanism by which to influence or directly impact an outcome. Navigating one’s way through the multitude of competing AI offerings requires a clear understanding of what is available and how it might serve your particular needs and resources. While many suppliers now make room for AI support, knowing their unique capability and strength especially as some features become commodity offerings, will allow you to align the right fit.
With its focus on deep machine learning at its 2018 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit in London, AWS is speaking to organisations that want to realise transformative change through Artificial Intelligence. This reports looks at where a vendor like AWS is placing some of its emphasis with respect to its AI offerings.

The digital landscape of new technologies and operating models offers many opportunities. Businesses want to stay relevant. Not only do they worry about being disrupted, they are actively seeking ways to be a disrupter in their markets and opening portals to potential new ones.
In this discussion on ‘Transforming to digital - Precision tactics from the IBM Cloud Garages’, Bola Rotibi of CIC, talks to Steve Robinson, General Manager of Client Technical Engagement in IBM Hybrid Cloud and Rachel Reinitz, IBM Fellow and CTO IBM Cloud Garage. The podcast discussion looks at understanding what is at stake in the digital economy. More importantly, it identifies the value add that an innovation centre like the IBM Cloud Garage can offer in helping organisations steer a path towards digitally transforming and advancing their business operations.
Additionally, listeners will gain insights into:

How the IBM Cloud Garages have been developed and designed to showcase IBM’s core strengths in the market aligned to the latest and best learnings and implementation practices from Silicon Valley and other centres of technology innovations.

Maximising and optimising engagement at a Cloud Garage session for a successful outcome and continued value.

This is an accompanying report to the CIC Software Delivery InFocus Podcast Series on Where next for Cloud in Europe. To understand how IBM sees the current state of the Cloud market, customer needs and its own offering, CIC’s Research Director, Bola Rotibi spoke with IBM Europe’s General Manager of Cloud, Sebastian Krause. In this report we outline and summarise important insights from the discussion and offer a glimpse into the strategic focus for IBM when it comes to Cloud and how the company sees the future.

Organisations are looking to implement strategies and processes that allow them to successfully operate in the digital economy. They need guidance to understand how best to achieve their goals and what supporting practices will ensure the most effective and efficient approaches. While no two organisations are the same, learn how Swisscom employs it Cloud innovation lab to expose the tactics for identifying and delivering solutions in the digital economy.

How does Healthcare Transformation happen?
Easterseals Bay Area (ESBA) knows how to transform a highly manual, paper-based healthcare organisation into an agile, data-driven enterprise, supported by a HIPAA compliant integrated cloud-based infrastructure, to drive efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery to patients and their families.
The results have led the company to transform from a pure provider of behavioral health services to people with disabilities and their families into a founding member of one of the largest behavioral health networks in the U.S.
This case study provides both a business and technical blueprint for the efficient and effective network management of distributed services and providers, within a healthcare environment, using the core Salesforce platform and, in particular, Salesforce Health Cloud.

Despite the hype and noise, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Blockchains hold great promise in healthcare if executed correctly. And there lies the challenge…’If done correctly!’
This CIC report sees Dr Robert M. Learney, a qualified doctor who studied medicine at Oxford University present the operational opportunities that blockchain and DLT could deliver to the healthcare ecosystem. Many will want and need to understand what is practical and how such technologies can address the demands and changing dynamics of the healthcare stakeholder community. Important questions such as how DLT and blockchains can advance and secure engagements and interactions within national and global healthcare networks.
Specifically, CIC’s report offers insights into how DLT and Blockchains can be used to break walls between data silos and offer new ways for standardising healthcare data. Readers will be left with a number of take-away points that they can use to learn from what is promised by distributed ledger technology in healthcare and what has emerged so far.

Cloud computing is maturing and from the growth of adoption within organisations large and small we are clearly well and truly over the hype cycle. In this podcast, Bola Rotibi of CIC, talks to Sebastian Krause, IBM’s General Manager for Cloud in Europe about what he sees as the next key steps for cloud in Europe. The podcast discussion provides insights into the following important areas such as:

State of the nation – Cloud evolution and maturity

IBM’s Cloud strategy with its ONE Architecture approach

Cloud Engagement

Cloud Progression and recommendations

Listeners will get insights into evolutionary trends in the cloud market and the big hitters for cloud technology. They will also learn what IBM’s One Architecture approach for cloud will mean for them as well as who in the organisation needs to be empowered to the complexities of the modern IT estate and offers the most impact on its cloud journey. Most importantly of all, with the mix of technologies and process initiatives facing organisations being broad they will find out IBM’s approach to helping them make sense of them all in the context of Cloud.
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In this CIC case study, you will learn how a 40+ year old leading furniture retailer in South Florida undertook a successful mobile transformation to improve its workforce’s productivity. Important points of focus:

An overview of the transformational journey that City Furniture needed to undertake

Harnessing AI engagement effectively for business and operational gain

IBM, through the capabilities of its Watson cognitive technology services, is enabling a powerful and more effective and productive Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system that can be easily implemented with existing investments in software development skillsets. In this briefing report, CIC explores the business and operational advantages that IBM Voice Gateway offers, particularly in addressing the skills challenge faced by organisation looking to support some of the latest technological advances impacting the digital landscape. We draw from research studies conducted into the support for key digital technologies across various industry sectors and the opportunities, goals and challenges expected from their use.
With insights into proof of concepts conducted by independent software vendors (ISVs) and the market dynamics of contact/call centres, this report will identify vital differentiators to current IVR systems, showcase established use case scenarios and outline important usage considerations. Other points highlighted:

Getting to grips with the Artificial Intelligence hubris underpinning the digital economy with a spotlight on the cognitive reboot for telephony.

The last few years have given us mobile, cloud computing , Internet of Things (IoT) and so on.
Each of these comes with a wealth of languages, platforms, tools and more. While organisations are caught up in the frenzy to not be left behind (and get disrupted), choices are being made today that may have implications for many years to come.
In this CIC report based on an independent study conducted on the drivers for adopting application programming technologies and models, we identify the following:

7 trending dynamics in app development and delivery

The App Development choices shaping the app market

The criteria for what makes a language popular and ripe for adoption

In short, our briefing note highlights the main criteria that should be considered when making, what could turn out to be important strategic decisions.
This paper was authored on an independent basis by the analyst team at Creative Intellect Consulting, with sponsorship from IBM Mobile. The content is based on industry intelligence gathered and analysed by the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor.

In today’s IT infrastructure landscape and operating climate there are key technology and processing trends that established runtime platforms must evolve to meet the new digital demands.
This report summarises the main trends and practices impacting the application server estate. We recommend this briefing note as a companion to CIC’s report on Galvanising and supporting hybrid cloud delivery.

The use of cloud-based services and operations and wider support for cloud deployments is a growing reality. This is true even amongst those organisations committed to maintaining a level of support for non-cloud based workloads. Crucially, cloud underpins many of the technologies spearheading the digital economy. Across industries and markets, many also see it as a fundamental component for digital transformation.
This report investigates the dynamics of the cloud market and profiles technologies that leverage cloud to enable new innovations and opportunities and improve business and operational output. Specifically, the report:

Identifies the mix of workload scenarios that are being adopted in hybrid environments, that support cloud services and on-premises IT infrastructure

Offers guide points and step directions for those who have already, or are looking to, invest in WebSphere Application Server technology, so that they are better equipped to start their use of cloud computing

Highlights the new features within WebSphere V9

This paper was authored on an independent basis by the analyst team at Creative Intellect Consulting, with sponsorship from IBM. The content is based on industry intelligence gathered and analysed by the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor.

We know that most organisations are either at the very start of their journey to cloud or have not begun. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has long been the leader in the cloud market. Its lead in terms of market share may differ, depending on how figures are calculated, but its lead in other key areas is unquestionable. These include heritage (10+ years makes it the oldest cloud vendor), number of services, high profile successful customers, and perhaps most importantly, thought leadership.
With so many capabilities, the key for AWS and customers is in understanding where such breadth has value and where depth in capability is important. This report serves to help those looking to navigate the breadth of potential and value from the AWS cloud stack.

One of the biggest trends in the market today is Digital Transformation. Therefore, it is surprising how little clarity there is to what the term specifically means.
To try to bring clarity to the term Digital Transformation and answer important questions for organisation concerned with it, CIC conducted a quantitative study of over 300 organisations of various sizes, industries and geographies. This report outlines the key findings, along with the dynamics underpinning the drive and journey towards digital transformation. Importantly, it presents the following:

A map of the challenges and barriers to overcome, as well as key channels that must be navigated if the opportunities presented by a digital transformation are to be realised.

Defines the underlying support for low code development tools and their role in helping to deliver the digital transformation process.

For organisations looking to ensure the most effective strategy for their digital transformation journey CIC’s study offers 4 insights that must be in their game plan.

This paper was authored on an independent basis by the analyst team at Creative Intellect Consulting, with sponsorship from Uniface. The content is based on industry intelligence gathered and analysed by the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor.

What makes a successful mobile app?
Successful mobile app development requires the right support network, design approach, and tooling and processes arsenal.
However, there are certain key elements that make a successful mobile app. User experience is critical and goes beyond purely focusing on the visual interface. It must:

Meet users’ needs and deliver services that leverage the convenience of mobile

Deliver services securely and support secure and authorised interactions

Prioritise high performance and usability

Adapt to the user’s behaviour

Keep the app simple, accessible and o er easy navigation

Seamlessly incorporate relevant data held in other systems

Adapt content and capabilities to mobile and for di erent types of devices

Many businesses recognise that cloud will play a significant role in the future of their IT. This has been reflected in numerous studies. But it is also true that moving to cloud, especially public cloud, is challenging for many: and even in the long term it may not be 100% possible or desirable.
IT needs a way to enable a cloud future, both for now and over the long term, while understanding that the organisation, and external factors such as legislation and compliance, may take time to transition. With AWS’s popularity and the growing skills, knowledge and experience among the developer community, it makes sense for many to see AWS as part of a long-term cloud strategy.
HPE Helion Eucalyptus exists to facilitate both IT and the organisation’s needs and future. In this report we look to the directions for key roles within the IT organisation.

Summary points

A stakeholder strategy for a hybrid cloud engagement model: IT role directions for HPE Helion Eucalyptus

Hybrid cloud model supporting Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Unlike with other vendor solutions, HPE Helion Eucalyptus allows an organisation to embrace one of the most popular public cloud environments – AWS – at their own pace and in a way that suits both their business, operation and application objectives.
Crucially, it is a solution that can help organisations to move to a cloud environment, in terms of adopting the skills, processes, tools and other requirements, but in the relative safety of a private cloud infrastructure that the IT organisation can feel happy with.
In this report we provide an overview of the HPE Helion Eucalyptus services and review the strategic and tactical advantages that the solution offers.
Summary points

A private cloud solution, which offers a unique proposition with its ability to act as an AWS clone.

The end of March saw HP provide updates on Cloud28+ and HP Helion. At The Cloud28+ Symposium in Frankfurt, Germany brought together a number of ecosystem members, while The HP Helion Roadshow in London provided a general update on the various Helion related products and services. What both events had in common was that they reflected how HP has been refining its messaging around the cloud story. As it does so, the strategy becomes clearer and makes a lot of good sense for both HP and its customers and partners.
In this report, we examine the messaging underpinning HP’s Cloud strategy and identify where next for the portfolio and services.

Like a high stakes gambler on a roll, IBM is strengthening its investment in cloud computing by injecting US$1.2bn into facilities and software. Just a couple of years ago, building datacentres was seen as a route to self-destruction. IBM has now decided to reverse that trend by commissioning 15 new datacentres, none of which will replace an existing facility. What has changed?

This report accompanies the Creative Intellect Consulting Software Development, Delivery, and Lifecycle Management podcast on “Cloud development and delivery realities: Architectural pitfalls to avoid.” We asked how to do it. This report summarizes the key points raised during the podcast discussion as well as the main best practice guidelines identified. The podcast audio can be accessed at www.creativeintellectuk.com.

In this report from our Creative Shorts series on Application Lifecycle Management, we suggest principles for Cloud development and lifecycle management that will ensure maximum benefits for multiple Cloud computing models.

The podcast discussion looked to understand some of the architectural challenges of moving to the cloud, and to identify important considerations for ensuring a smooth transition and obtaining the right support. Scroll down for more details.
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As we have begun to closely define the technologies that make up Cloud computing, the overuse of the phrase is causing confusion and no where moreso than in the crucial area of security in the Cloud. This reports examines what it really means in detail.

IBM hosted a Cloud Day event in Dublin at the end of October 2010. This Creative Intellect Consulting “Shorts” Report summarises our key opinions as a result of that briefing as well as subsequent Cloud announcements and insights from IBM.

In October 2010, IBM announced a raft of new products that will support the IBM Cloud platform. These ranged from planning and preparation to application delivery, management tools to new Cloud-based solutions. IBM made its first serious Cloud announcements in June 2009 as part of the Smart Business branding. Since then it has had two major announcements of new technologies, each one designed to address a particular implementation or task that IBM believes its customers want. October 2010's announcements are the third major update to IBM's Cloud strategy and product portfolio.
In this report we examine the impact these Cloud announcements will have and the potential for IBM and its community going forward into 2011.